Subject: Re: utmpx.h
To: Greg A. Woods <woods@weird.com>
From: James Graham <greywolf@starwolf.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 09/23/2001 17:58:54
On Sun, 23 Sep 2001, Greg A. Woods wrote:

# > #define	_PATH_UTMPX	"/var/run/utmpx"
# > #define	_PATH_WTMPX	"/var/log/wtmpx"
#
# These names (i.e. the basenames) are a really bad idea if you're not
# making them 100% compatible with ATT SysVr4....

Basenames?  You mean everything after the final slash?  Looks like
they're compatible to me.

Other than that, we'd want to be 100% compatible with ATT SysVr4...why,
exactly?

No user program should ever be referencing the paths directly anyway --
all accesses should go through (get|put)[uw]tx?ent.

# I think a standards-compatible API is mandatory, regardless of whatever
# might have to happen in the future to support some re-entrant API, as is
# an extensible, architecture-indpendent, on-disk format.

...which can't happen until programs stop insisting on writing to
[uw]tmpx? directly.

				--*greywolf;
--
NetBSD: safe ports in a storm.